SW Scotland/N Ireland genetic cluster

[Jon]

Hi Guys,

Just got LivingDNA results back. It was very much as expected, with 45% SW Scotland/N Ireland being my biggest hit. A huge amount of my tree originates in that Ayrshire/Galloway region.

Now I wanted to tap into the knowledge bases here in terms of the shared genetics between these regions. It must be close, or else it wouldn't be combined like this I guess? I'm aware of the Ulster plantation history; but what are the other shared movements historically speaking?

I'm thinking guys like Alan, Heber or Dubhtach may be able to help out here...

[Nqp15hhu]

I’m Northern Irish and this category was my lowest percentage despite having a reasonable Chunk of Ulster Scots Dna.

[Jon]

I've heard the percentages can be unreliable. I got a huge amount of southern English coast - despite having no ancestors down there, but in the English midlands. I've been told that French ancestry can come up as southern English coast, which might explain it (we have a French surname in our line which seems to be Huguenot).

[jstephan]

I've heard the percentages can be unreliable. I got a huge amount of southern English coast - despite having no ancestors down there, but in the English midlands. I've been told that French ancestry can come up as southern English coast, which might explain it (we have a French surname in our line which seems to be Huguenot).

Hi Jon, was she fully French and did you find out where her parents (your great great great grand-parents) were from exactly?, being your great great grand-mother, which means 1/16 (6%) of your DNA, and even if she was from let's say Southern France, I believe this could explain your southern English pull.

I just did a basic quick experiment for fun on the G25 (not to take too seriously), using Occitanie (Southern France) and Scottish averages to model English, and this is what I get :

Target: English
Distance: 0.5625% / 0.00562453
89.4 Scottish
10.6 French_Occitanie

And then when replacing Occitanie with French Nord :

Target: English
Distance: 0.5839% / 0.00583890
85.0 Scottish
15.0 French_Nord

And the distances are good, so basically, even if she was from Southern France and having the rest of your DNA from Scotland, parts of your DNA could easily be mistaken for English, you could even have up to 3 great great grand parents from northern France + the rest from Scotland and your DNA could still be mistaken for English.

The Main difference between avg British and avg French is that avg British have more Steppe and less Farmer ancestry than avg French but Southern English are somehow in between in comparison to Scots and your own DNA certainly too. And some French populations such as the Bretons and the Normans even overlap with the Southern English.

But next step is to order your G25 coordinates, because that is the only way to resolve properly the mystery.

[fridurich]

Hi Guys,

Just got LivingDNA results back. It was very much as expected, with 45% SW Scotland/N Ireland being my biggest hit. A huge amount of my tree originates in that Ayrshire/Galloway region.

Now I wanted to tap into the knowledge bases here in terms of the shared genetics between these regions. It must be close, or else it wouldn't be combined like this I guess? I'm aware of the Ulster plantation history; but what are the other shared movements historically speaking?

I'm thinking guys like Alan, Heber or Dubhtach may be able to help out here...

Hi Jon.

From about the 12th Century A. D. all the way through the 16th Century A. D., Irish chiefs hired the part Gaelic/part Norse descended Gallowglass mercenaries from the Western Isles of Scotland and Argyle in their wars with the Normans, each other, etc. Some of these Gallowglass clans became Irish septs in their own right and the Gallowglass intermarried with the Irish. Another time frame for probable admixture between Ireland and Scotland was during about the 6th Century A. D. to at least about the 7th Century A. D. when the Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riata straddled both part of northeast Ireland and western Scotland.

Also, considering the closeness of Galloway to northeast Ireland, it wouldn't be surprising if through the centuries before the Ulster Plantations, if there was a lot of trade between the two areas, which could cause some admixture between them. Gaelic was spoken in Galloway and Ayrshire for a long time. In Galloway it was probably widely spoken all through the 15th Century A. D., and there were probably places it was spoken there until right up until the first official Ulster Plantation of 1609. There is some evidence it was spoken there and/or Ayrshire in the 17th Century.

I don't think the Protestant Reformation in Scotland really got going good before the early 16th Century. So religion would have been no barrier to prevent intermarriage between Galloway/Ayrshire and Ulster before that time. I get the impression that there was a period of time when the culture of Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Western Isles, and Galloway/Ayrshire was similar. Among many of the early Planters from Galloway, you will find Gaelic surnames such as Kennedy, McLellan, McClintock, etc. You probably know that Kennedy is also an Irish surname.

Kind Regards,
Fred

[sktibo]

I’m Northern Irish and this category was my lowest percentage despite having a reasonable Chunk of Ulster Scots Dna.

Hey Nqp, I was thinking about your Living DNA situation, I can't remember but do you get Cumbria?

My mom has one grandparent whose ancestors were from Northern Ireland, with one of this grandparent's mother being born in Coleraine.
Attachment 40462

This is what she got, notice she only got 1.3% of the Northern Irish category, and got a bunch of Ireland and Cumbria instead. I've seen this pattern a lot in people's results of Northern Irish origin on the Living DNA facebook group. Did you get a bunch of Cumbria in your results?

Oh, and she has no Irish ancestors. Absolutely no DNA matches of purely Irish origin, nor any Irish genetic communities. If there was Irish in her, I would have found it because Irish is the ethnicity I wished to have in my tree more than any other. It took years before I gave up. see AncestryDNA for example:

Attachment 40463

[Jon]

Thanks guys!

jstephan: My great great grandmother was English, by the name Mary Jane Boucher. Her father, Joseph Boucher, has been difficult to trace. Mary Jane was born in Birmingham, but before that they certainly came from somewhere else. There is a candidate for Joseph Boucher's birth in Gloucestershire, where there were bigger Huguenot communities (and the Gloucestershire region is my biggest hit in England, at 14.4%). So no, we don't know for sure that the line is French - but there are certainly Huguenot families confirmed in the English immigration records called Boucher; and it seems that if it was an English family, the name would probably have become Butcher? Thanks for the G25 tip. What is this exactly, and how do I get to it?

Fred: Many thanks. My Y-DNA is L513 (L193). I hear there's been some aDNA findings of L513 in Munster, Ireland, dated around 500AD. Those guys (possibly Erainn?) were said to be related to Dalriada...so maybe there's a link there- Also there's quite a bit of L513 in the Hebrides in Scotland from what I hear. This is all speculation of course, but it's cool to see the pieces falling together a bit more. I read a fascinating old book recently, on the old Mac- names in Galloway that became extinct when English took over. Also the place name evidence down there is hugely Gaelic. Funnily enough I only score 1.4% Ireland in my results - I had expected more, having Scottish ancestry.

[jstephan]

Thanks guys!
jstephan: My great great grandmother was English, by the name Mary Jane Boucher. Her father, Joseph Boucher, has been difficult to trace. Mary Jane was born in Birmingham, but before that they certainly came from somewhere else. There is a candidate for Joseph Boucher's birth in Gloucestershire, where there were bigger Huguenot communities (and the Gloucestershire region is my biggest hit in England, at 14.4%). So no, we don't know for sure that the line is French - but there are certainly Huguenot families confirmed in the English immigration records called Boucher; and it seems that if it was an English family, the name would probably have become Butcher? Thanks for the G25 tip. What is this exactly, and how do I get to it?

Ok, so my whole post is totally irrelevant sorry as it was based on the idea she was 100% French, and I suppose her mother was already fully English and her paternal line was French just by surname since maybe the 17th century. The reason for your Southern English pull is certainly else. To get your G25 coordinates, just send you raw DNA to David via email and Make a 12 $ payment through Paypal, it's all explained here http://bga101.blogspot.com/2017/10/g...ore-to-be.html

[Nqp15hhu]

Hey Nqp, I was thinking about your Living DNA situation, I can't remember but do you get Cumbria?

My mom has one grandparent whose ancestors were from Northern Ireland, with one of this grandparent's mother being born in Coleraine.
Attachment 40462

This is what she got, notice she only got 1.3% of the Northern Irish category, and got a bunch of Ireland and Cumbria instead. I've seen this pattern a lot in people's results of Northern Irish origin on the Living DNA facebook group. Did you get a bunch of Cumbria in your results?

Oh, and she has no Irish ancestors. Absolutely no DNA matches of purely Irish origin, nor any Irish genetic communities. If there was Irish in her, I would have found it because Irish is the ethnicity I wished to have in my tree more than any other. It took years before I gave up. see AncestryDNA for example:

Attachment 40463

I got 5.1% Cumbria.